FLIGHT International, IS October *980
New operators for Boeing 737
Air Mo/to ond British charter airline Monarch are new operators of the Boeing 737. Air Malta starts 737 operations next month with an aircraft leased
from Transavia Holland. Two more Transavia aircraft will join Air Malta's fleet in April. Luton-based charter carrier Monarch Airlines has received
its first 737 from Boeing. Another arrives later in the winter, and it will be operated out of West Berlin for o West German tour operator
New Cairo-based airline will start
operations in December
ARABIA-Arab International Airlines,
a new Cairo-based venture founded
in 1979 by Egyptian and Saudi
investors with $15 million capital, will
start operations on December 1. The
project had originally been called
Arab International Air.
The fleet will initially consist of
two Boeing 737-200s wet-leased from
Maersk Air of Denmark—but Arabia
will buy one of them after two months
and the other after a year. A third
737 will be leased from Maersk on
March 1, 1981, and bought after 12
months. Orders for delivery of three
new 737s during the second half of
1982 have been placed, together with
options on three more.
Arabia will operate domestic
schedules out of Cairo to Luxor,
Alexandria, Port Said, Hurqhada and
St Catherine. International schedules
will fly between Cairo and Malta and
Luxembourg twice-weekly.
Egypt's civil aviation authorities
have given the airline traffic rights to
Rio de Janeiro via Dakar, Sydney via
Singapore, and Seoul via Sharjah, but
these operations will not begin until
"phase two" of the carrier's plans, of
which full details are not known,
comes into action. Arabia also has
plans to operate charter flights con
necting Cairo, Alexandria and Luxor
with European points. The airline
plans to fly 4,500 charter hours and
3,000 scheduled flight hours during
1981.
Post Office link has successful first year
DELIVERY of mail to many parts of
the UK has been speeded up by a
Royal Mail airlift introduced last
August. The Post Office reports that it
is now flying about 250,000 letters a
day. This will rise to about 400,000 a
day during Christmas. The operation
is centred on Liverpool's Speke Air
port and letters are flown to and from
many airports in the British Isles. The
Post Office refers to the system as
"The Spokes of Speke" and contracts
individual operators to fly the service
from each airport, involving a range
of aircraft including Fokker F.27s,
British Aerospace 748s, Piper Chief
tains and Senecas, Pilatus Britten-
Norman Islanders, Embraer Bandeir-
antes and de Havilland Canada Twin
Otters.
The airlift costs about £2 million a
year but this represents less than lp
a letter. Stansted Airport may be
included in the Southend-Birmingham-
Speke link soon. British Air Ferries
has been flying this route with
Handley Page Heralds since its incep
tion last November and usually carries
about 500 mail bags a day on two
flights. The Southend service is still
temporary, But is likely to be made
permanent in the near future.
Scheduled airlines are used on some
routes.
• Letters destined for North Sea oil
rigs and platforms are flown by British
Airways Helicopters from Beccles.
This British Air Ferries Herald operates a
Royal Mail service between iis Southend base
and Birmingham and Liverpool (Speke)
Riyadh TriStar fire:
eye witness report
clashes with official
statements
SAUDI Arabian Civil Aviation
Authorities have criticised the pilot of
the Saudia TriStar for turning off the
runway when it landed (Flight, last
week, page 1407), rather than stop
ping on the runway to allow
emergency services immediate access.
A British eyewitness reports that the
aircraft did stop at the end of runway
01 after its landing run, and that it
then shut down the two outboard
engines (the tail engine was already
shut down).
According to this report, two fire
vehicles attended the aircraft while it
was stopped, but then the captain
restarted the engines, carried out a
180° turn, and backtracked to a turn-
off point where he cleared the runway
and came to a halt with engines still
running.
A Saudia source in London confirms
the backtrack report, but not the
temporary engine shutdown. Official
sources still decline to comment on
the fact that air traffic control told the
aircraft to leave the runway, or on the
reason why this order was given.
¥Ut